Let It Be

Let It Be is the twelfth and final studio album by The Beatles, released in May 1970 on Apple Records, four weeks after McCartney's public announcement of his departure from the group, and compiled from sessions recorded in January 1969 that were intended to document the band returning to a live, improvisational approach after the studio complexity of the White Album and Abbey Road. The production credit became one of the most contentious disputes in rock history: Phil Spector was brought in by Lennon and Klein to apply orchestral overdubs to the rough recordings, producing a final mix that McCartney publicly disavowed; he later reclaimed the original sessions in the 2003 stripped-down release Let It Be... Naked and the 2024 box set. Lennon contributed 'Across the Universe' (featuring the spoken phrase 'Jai guru deva om' over an Indian-influenced drone), 'Dig a Pony,' and 'One After 909'; McCartney contributed the title track, 'The Long and Winding Road,' and 'Get Back'; Harrison provided 'I Me Mine' and 'For You Blue,' his most extensive contribution to any Beatles album since the White Album. The sessions also captured the final public performance of The Beatles, on the rooftop of the Apple Corps building on January 30, 1969, preserved in the 2021 Peter Jackson documentary Get Back. Let It Be is simultaneously a historical document of a disintegrating band and a collection of genuinely beautiful music made in spite of that disintegration.